ICS appeal - any point?

[Enceladus89]

We missed out on our local primary school by 24 metres. All 30 reception places were given, with 16 places filled in by siblings living in the catchment and the rest by children living in the catchment.
We are in the catchment and there was no other child between us and the last child admitted from the catchment area.
We were given a place at a school 2.5 miles away.
I've looked into Infant Class Size appeals and one of the circumstances in which you can appeal is if there is an error made by the admissions authority in measuring the distance between home to school.
The LA uses a software to calculate the distances and there's no way for me check how the distance was measured on their system. They don't provide info on how the distance is actually calculated, is it from the front or middle of the house to main gate or other points within the school.

So, my question is, is there any point to look further into ICS appeals? Is it possible that there was en error in calculating the distance?
Or should I just accept the situation we're in and hope some spaces will become available?

The LA's software measures from a "seed point" in your property to an equivalent in the school. As long as they have your correct address, it's very unlikely there was an error. You could ask where in the school the measure is, and is it the same for all pupils (for example, my primary measures to the "nearest school gate" for each pupil as we have 2 gates, so there is always the mall chance it was measured to the wrong gate), but if there is only one gate it will be the same for all.

That said, it is always worth appealing, as you never know what might come out; just be aware, as you appear to be, that ICS appeals are very hard to win.

I would have thought at that distance you are high on the waiting list.

I think generally appeals are only going to have a chance if you have more reason to suspect an error e.g. the furthest distance admitted is further away than you. Or maybe when it is very small distances. Someone missed out on a place by less than a metre. Whilst 24 metres is a relatively short distance, it's quite big in terms of error. Even if they measured a different point of your house, you wouldn't be closer than the previous person. Realistically I think you have to just hope someone declines a place or moves.

The IT system used by all the LAs that I know is capable of measuring distances down to 1 metre, though most of the time they do not need to go any where near that accurate. So assuming that we are talking straight line distance measurements then you would not win an appeal on the basis of the measurement being inaccurate between the seed point on the school and the seed point on your home. Any incorrect measurement would only be because the wrong home was used.
However not all measurements are straight line from seed point to seed point and so some admission criteria talk about main entrance or main gate at which point there could be some room for questioning the accuracy in the context of say which main entrance?